Igneous Petrology II

GM 312
 The Microgranite,
Microadamellite, and
Microgranodiorite Clans
 Micro-Granite
❑Some Microgranites are potassic
and some are sodic, but most are
potassic-sodic or sodi-potassic.
❑The feature that attracts more
attention than the composition of
the feldspar is the nature of the
coloured silicates present.
❑In some microgranite, biotite
occurs; but in these dykes’ rocks
near to rhyolites than to granites,
pyroxenes- usually light colored
diopsidic augite- take precedence
over mica. Hedenbergite,
accompanied sometimes by iron
rich olivine, occurs in some
microgranite.
❑In more strongly sodic
microgranites such NaFe-rich
pyroxenes and amphiboles such as
aegirine and riebeckite occur.
 Micro-Granite
❑As regards texture,
microgranites grade with
diminishing grain-size into
rhyolite, and with increasing
grain-size into granites.
❑The texture are
intermediate between, and
grade into those displayed by
rhyolites and granites
respectively.
❑Three different textures are
important: 1- porphyritic, 2-
non- porphyritic (aphyric) and
3- micrographic.
 Porphyritic microgranites,
micro-adamellites, and
microgranodiorites:
❑1- These are widely termed
quartz porphyries or granite
porphyries.
❑The phenocrysts (first
generation crystals) are believed
to have formed at depth were
perfect crystal were developed,
notably the feldspars which are
euhedral and plane-faced.
❑Quartz is the high (β) form, of
distinctive dihexagonal
bipyramidal shape; the crystals
are both fewer and smaller than
the feldspar.
2-Non-porphyritic microgranites,
micro-adamellites,
microgranodiorites:

❑These resemble the porphyritic one in

composition and mode of occurrence, but they
contain no phenocryst.
❑Texturally and, up to a point, mineralogically
too, these rocks are close to granite-aplites but
differ by containing appreciably more coloured
minerals: aplite represents only a felsic residue
from granite, but non-porphyritic microgranite
represents all the granite, mafic as well as felsic
components.
 These are termed granophyres.

Most granophyres are porphyritic and, in

3- general, are close to porphyritic microgranites;
Micrographic in fact, it is only the groundmass texture, which
microgranites: distinguishes them.

The groundmass of granophyres consists of

intergrowth of quartz and alkali feldspars due
to simultaneous crystallization from a eutectic
mixture.